Another Milestone in Learning Chinese?

Thanks to everyone who has been asking how the presentations went. As mentioned in the earlier post, March 20th and March 26th were two significant external client facing formal presentations on a technical topic I was very insecure about. I've been doing presentations on a smaller scale with clients, and certainly presentations to students and internal employees - this was different. Perhaps its psychological - another milestone or mental breakthrough in the language journey.

How did it go? I don't know. After the March 20th presentation I didn't feel like "I nailed that one" ... but at the same time I didn't feel like I need to dig a hole and bury my head in it (that feeling does happen from time to time). In the end, I know I didn't do great, but considering my current language ability and the graciousness of the Taiwanese audience, it could have been a lot worse. They know I am obviously not a native Chinese speaker and fortunately, I'm speaking from the perspective of sharing international experience.

The Chairman of the Accounting Research Foundation did say to me in a lunch the following week that while he missed my session, he heard it was one of the best ones. I'm not taking this too seriously as it could just be Chinese courtesy!

I did notice I have felt a little more confident in formal presentations since this date. Again, a mental breakthrough. Still have lots to go in the language learning journey.

Tomorrow I get to have dinner with 12 Partners from the other Big 4 (our competitors) on the topic of Quality & Risk Management - have to brush up on more technical terms!

Here's some press coverage of the March 26th event we held:

Random signage

Just thought I'd share some funny signage I've seen in Taiwan lately.

This was an Owl Crossing sign we saw while hiking on Yangmingshan for the Calla Lillies.



This one was seen very close to our apartment across from a school. It's graffiti, which makes the content of the graffiti really interesting.

Among the Flowers

In February I had the opportunity to finally go to Yangmingshan and see the calla lillies. For 2 years we've heard about how you can go up to the mountain and pick your own callas in the field, but every year, we miss it. So I was really excited to finally make it out.

Ray decided to stay at home with Kasper and have some father/son time. A good thing too because the fog was so heavy, we all felt like we were walking behind a waterfall. Needless to say, my hair was super frizzy and out of control, and we were all very wet.

BUT...here I am...among the flowers!



Here's the group of us. Cold & wet, but happy to have been "Among the Flowers"! :)

2009會計新紀元-迎接IFRS接軌之挑戰--議程確認

Can't read or follow the subject title of this blog? Don't worry, I can't fully follow it either!

Continuing in the spirit of fast paced, challenging and new opportunities - I continue to get more and more responsibilities. One of my external market facing responsibilities is being the IFRS leader for Taiwan. IFRS standard for International Financial Reporting Standards, which basically are a set of internationally accepted accounting standards that is different from the existing accounting rules in many countries (including Taiwan, Canada and US). At the same time, most of these countries will be adopting IFRS in the years to come. For Taiwan this is a significant change and from an accounting firm perspective, potentially could create significant service (and revenue) oppportunities for us.

Compared to two years ago I am significantly more comfortable speaking in Chinese. Don't be fooled - its all relative and you have to keep in mind I had very very little before coming here. I'm personally very happy and surprised at my progress.. It's been great, but challenging.. Learning languages has required bold moves in terms of trying to speak, being vulnerable, etc. Quite contrary to my natural personality or preference, but learning Chinese was a key objective of being out here.

Daily conversation in the workplace is one thing... speaking in front of strangers and groups is another. I'm already way over my head conducting business in Chinese, speaking in front of students, teaching classes, etc. For the most part, these have been internal meetings or when external, its been in smaller groups where people can understand that I will have an accent, make mistakes and have limited vocabulary.

Well friends, I want to ask you to pray for me... yes, to pray for a very practical but perhaps not so significant in the grand scheme of things (egthis may not change lives in the foreseeable future)... however, I'm scared.

Next week, I'm representing our firm at a fairly significant conference. It's held by the Accounting Research Foundation in Taiwan, one of the key standard setters. Almost all of the key regulators, academia, our competitors and key senior finance people (CFO types) will be at this conference. They're coming to hear the latest news and views from the "experts" on how Taiwan will adopt these new accounting standards.

I get to do a presentation and then participate in a panel. Will I even catch the question correctly?

Oh.. in case you haven't figured it out, this is all in Chinese... and today they told me that the session is oversold and will have over 400 people in attendance. This is front page financial media stuff in Taiwan - the equivalent of a SEC conference in the US or a CICA conference in Canada.

My slides are still not done as the content is already hard to get right (in English)... how and why am I the best choice to do this?

Help!

If this wasn't enough, I'm also the Technology Industry Leader for our firm in Taiwan. What does this mean? Who knows - perhaps it means that I'm the leader who will bring the best thought leadership, subject matter expert and industry experiences to our technology clients. Taiwan has a very long, successful and mature history in the technology industry... how do I do this other job? Well.. another plea and prayer for another day.